Ephraim Kishon died

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Ephraim Kishon died today of a heart attack at age 80.

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Kishon, one of Israel's most prolific writers, was born in Budapest and immigrated to Israel in 1949. He was sent to a concentration camp in World War II. "They made a mistake they left one satirist alive," Kishon later said, summing up the period in his book "The Scapegoat."

Kishon's first satire published in Israel was "The Blaumilch Canal" in the newspaper Davar.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/533474.html

He truly will be missed. I loved his books and "The Blaumilch Canal"
a classic satire, was made into a movie which I have watched over and over again. One never gets tired of it.

His sense of humor was exceptionally. I feel saddened by his death.

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Most Americans probably don't know him, so here is a little
excerpt of one of his short stories,

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Thank you for introducing me to Kishon. I admit I had never heard of him. Now I will look up his work.

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Andrew, you won't be disappointed. He's the most humorous
writer you'll ever read.

Here is a tribute to his country

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Happy Birthday to the State of Israel (In: »Sorry we won«)

Israel is a country so tiny that there is no room to write its
name on the world map.

It is the only country in the world which is financed by its
taxpayers abroad.

It is a country which all the time eats up its inhabitants, and yet does not grow fat.

It is a country of boundless boundaries.

It is a country where mothers learn the mother tongue from
their sons.

It is a country where the fathers ate sour grapes, and the
children's teeth are excellent.

It is a country where one writes Hebrew, reads English, and
speaks Yiddish.

It is a county where everybody has the right to speak his mind,
but there is no law forcing anybody to listen.
Return to Flashback:
The State of Israel
It is the most enlightened country in the region, thanks to the
Arabs.

It is a country where all the capital is concentrated in Jewish
hands--and there is much grumbling because of this.

It is a country where one can buy anything in the world for his
money--except an apartment, which is very expensive.

It is a country where any babe in arms may contradict his
papa's political views.

It is a country of elections, but no choice.

It is a country which is an organic part of its trade unions.

It is a country where nobody wants to work, so they build a
new town in three days' time and go idle the rest of the week.

It is a country where a slip of paper can move mountains, but
all the mountains beget is speeches.

It is a country which produces less than it eats, and yet, of all
places, it is here that nobody has ever died of hunger.

It is a country where nobody expects miracles, but everybody
takes them for granted.

It is a country where one calls ministers simply "Moishe"--and
then almost dies with the excitement of it.

It is the only country in the region whose political regime is the
bus cooperative.

It is a country whose survival is permanently endangered, and
yet its inhabitants' ulcers are caused by the neighbors from
above.

It is a country where every human being is a soldier, and every soldier is a human being.

It is the only country in which I could live. It is my country.

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Reading along.

The story excerpt seems awfully familiar. Not sure where I would have been exposed to it.

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CJ, how do you know of him? His writing has me wanting more.

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Kishon is very much read in Europe. Love his short stories, funny and pensive at the same time. Highly recommended.

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Diane, as Dag said already, Kishon is very well known
in Europe and his chosen country Israel (he was born
in Budapest, Hungary).

He writes about every day topics in the most humorous
way, and since they are every day stories, almost everyone
can relate to it.

An equivalent would be perhaps Dave Berry who has a
column in almost every Sunday newspaper there is.

I'm looking for another excerpt of Kishon, he indeed
was funny.

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Here is one Smile

Quote:

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Beautiful, CJ. Now I know I have to look him up. And you're right -- there is a touch of Dave Barry in that piece on Swiss hygeine. But it's also reminiscent of Mark Twain in his most ironic mode.

Aside: apropos of that bit about the policeman advising him that the basket is for "litter," not "refuse" a similar situation occurred in real life in Boston not long ago. Refuse baskets of the sort mentioned in the Kishon story were overflowing with all sorts of garbage in the downtown area. The mayor (I forget who the mayor was at the time, not Menino) got angry and threatened to remove the baskets if people didn't stop using them for all sorts of trash! The newspapers had a field day with that. "Mayor Says Trash Baskets not for Trash" etc. etc.

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LOL, Merry Andrew.

He is wonderful, CJ. A little Dave Barry but with more character. I wonder why he isn't popular in the US? We may be leaning toward fundamentalism in government, but I don't think fundamentalists would pay any attention to this gentle author.

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You see Andrew, he always wrote about ordinary things
we all can relate to it.

I have two favorite stories of Kishon: in the first one Kishon describes his reseding hairline. He names his last 3 hairs
and when one of them falls out, he starts the mouring process.

The other story is about his first born. His first word was "Papa" and he was so thrilled to hear that until the little one woke up in the middle of the night and always called for "Papa" and Kishon had to get up and look after his son. The following day he taught the little one to say "Mama", and sure enough, when he woke up during the night, he called out for "Mama", who had to get up, while Papa was mischieviously
enjoying his bed. From there the story gets quite competitive.... Mr. Green

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Diane wrote:

LOL, Merry Andrew.

He is wonderful, CJ. A little Dave Barry but with more character. I wonder why he isn't popular in the US? We may be leaning toward fundamentalism in government, but I don't think fundamentalists would pay any attention to this gentle author.

I don't know Diane why he isn't popular here. I remember that I
had to special order his books since no bookstore carried him. Even
Amazon has only a small english selection of his works.

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dagmaraka wrote:

Kishon is very much read in Europe. Love his short stories, funny and pensive at the same time. Highly recommended.

His 50 books have been translated in 37 languages and were sold worldwide about 43 million times - 32 million alone in Germany.

(English) homepage

Bibliography (in English)

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Quote:

Obituaries

February 02, 2005

Ephraim Kishon
Conservative Israeli satirist and bestselling writer whose books are particularly popular in Germany

Source

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He lived a full life with being 80 years old, but he
still will be terribly missed.

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Ephraim Kishon died

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